While actions and investigations remain as mere announcements giving no positive hope to the common man, the dangers lurking in the railway tracks are seeing no end.
At least 39 people were killed and 65 injured when the Jagdalpur-Bhubaneswar Hirakhand Express derailed in Andhra Pradesh's Vizianagaram district Saturday night. As usual, an investigation was launched into the mishap with many doubting sabotage attempt behind the accident. The Railway authorities reiterated that they had not noticed any safety issues until the mishap happened. With frequent accidents, it becomes clearer that the Indian Railways that were once considered a safer and more comfortable transportation system in the country is no longer so. The derailment in Andhra Pradesh is the third big mishap in two months. On 20 November 2016, the Indore-Rajendra Nagar Express (19321), scheduled from Indore to Patna, derailed near Pukhrayan, Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh resulting in at least 150 deaths. Just after a month, fifteen coaches of the Sealdah-Ajmer Express derailed, not so far from Kanpur injuring over 50 persons. As per the data available with the Railway Board, there were 68 such accidents, during last year. And the accident rate has been increasing for the last six years.
The mistakes on the part of the employees are also equally grave. The Hirakhand Express that was hurtling down at high speed as it crossed the Kuneru station in Andhra Pradesh. The Parliamentary committee had found that over 70 per cent of the rail accidents since 2015 occurred due to human error. The committee condemned the Ministry for its failure in detecting the reasons for the frequent accidents which prevented them from occurring again. Despite the reports by the committee, no further actions are taken in this regard. Despite the numerous criticisms over the human errors, the required number of employees has also not been appointed. The posts of 24 per cent security officials in the eastern coastal areas alone remain vacant. There is a shortage of around 1.42 lakh railway officials in the country. Since numerous posts such as those of Engineers, signal and telecom operators and security officials remain unfilled, the employees complain of having had to work continuously for more than 20 hours. The reports which cited all the above problems went futile.
Did the government ensure the necessary safety measures in these high-risk areas? Instead of taking the precautions to prevent the accidents, the authorities seems to be more interested in saving their face by creating a barrier of analysis and conclusions and launching probes. The first and the foremost move to be taken for saving the railways, is to pull them on to the right track of responsibility and fair governance.